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An apple enjoyed fresh off the tree is delectable, but you may have to work hard for your shiny piece of fruit. Many different types of fungi and some varieties of bacteria can cause infections in a home garden. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Of course, this advice won’t do much good if you already have an apple tree, or if symptoms are actually due to a physiological problem like a nutrient deficiency rather than an infectious ailment....

With its feathery leaves, fleshy stems, and heart-shaped blooms, this member of the poppy family, Papaveraceae, loves sweet spring breezes. Through the hot summer months, bleeding heart dies back and gets ready to enter dormancy before putting on a show again the next year. But how can you make sure it comes back? What should you do to prepare your bleeding heart for winter temperatures – or for surprise cold snaps after the plant begins to grow again in the spring?...

While this nickname may conjure up images of a spiny cactus or other uninviting species, they’re actually lovely, flowering annuals. The name is derived from the way that the plants disperse seed, flinging it in all directions at the slightest touch. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Even though these species are typically found growing in the wild, luxuriating in shady embankments of the forest, they can also make a lovely, natural pollinator-supporting border planting in the garden or landscape....

No doubt he was thinking back to the years when I fought furiously to tug the tenacious weed from my garden beds. These days, I know better. Portulaca oleracea is a delicious, versatile green that – as you might have guessed, given that it’s considered a weed – practically grows without any help at all. Did I mention that it’s incredibly good for you, too? We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

In gratitude for the bountiful shade these leafy lovelies provide you all spring and summer, give your trees a leg up in their battle against winter’s worst weather. Even if you live in a place where winter days are more mild than malevolent, winter is a good time to give your trees a little extra attention. Please Prune Offer your tall beauties a healthy start to winter by making sure they are clear of deadwood, and are well-pruned for their species....

This is in part because of my (infamous) tendency to favor fuss-free houseplants, but another factor at work is how dang easy it is to propagate dracaena from cuttings. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Let’s get into how to grow dracaena from cuttings! The Basics There are a couple of available methods that work for propagating dracaena, but this guide will focus on the one that has the best track record, and is the easiest in practice....

Though not as ubiquitous as they are the Southeast, the crape myrtle’s range also extends to the Southwest and up the west coast, where they are also revered for their great beauty. Heralding summer’s arrival, crape myrtles erupt in May, June, or July with profuse clusters of delicate flowers in a myriad of colors, including white, various shades of pink, purple, yellow, and even red. As spectacular as they are in summer, in fall they lose their leaves and gardeners are left with bare branches, stems, and twigs begging to be whipped into shape....

Straw in particular offers a wide range of benefits that can make a drastic difference for the health and productivity of plants while saving you money and reducing labor. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. What Exactly Is Straw? Before going into the advantages of using straw to mulch your vegetable garden, it is useful to understand what exactly it is that you will be working with....

With fantastic, large flowerheads in colors of blue, lime green, mauve, pink, red, and white, they showcase an old-fashioned beauty that begs to be seen and admired. Their immense blooms make them a stand-alone in woody shrubs. These lovely plants are easy to cultivate, not fussy about soil requirements, and produce copious amounts of flowers that last well into fall. Plus, most have foliage that gives great autumn color as well....

Blackberries are a part of the Rosaceae family, along with some tasty relatives like strawberries, apricots, and raspberries. Like raspberries, most blackberry brambles are thorny, tangly, and can sprawl across your landscape if they’re not maintained. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Once this berry plant is ready and ripe, get ready for an abundant harvest!...

It’s necessary to have patience, as it can take a few years before the plants begin to produce fruit. Each season, you’ll be waiting at least six months from the time they set fruit in spring or summer until they’re ready to harvest, typically in late summer or fall. While you’re playing the waiting game, there are several factors that not only affect how the fruit matures, but that can impact how successful the yield will ultimately be in terms of quality as well....

Maybe you’ve heard of wild or tea roses, but you’re wondering what sets them all apart. If so, I feel you. When someone first started talking to me about floribundas and grandifloras, I was so lost that I thought maybe my rose mentor had started speaking another language altogether. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission....

As autumn gives way to winter and the cold weather brings frosty sidewalks and blankets of snow on the driveway, it’s time to make sure you are prepared. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. In this guide, we review seven of the top snow shovels to make short work of your winter chores....

How wonderful it would be, I thought, if I had a whole thicket of blackberries to wander through and pick from at leisure? Well, that never happened, but I won’t forget the time we bought a blackberry for my mom for Mother’s Day and put it in a container to grow. It may not have been a whole patch, but it was special nonetheless. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

Well, it’s actually a fruit, botanically speaking. But in the culinary world, we treat it as a vegetable. Also called “aubergine” and “brinjal,” the eggplant is a member of the nightshade or Solanaceae family, along with tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and petunias (yes, really). And as with tomatoes, eggplants can be tricky to grow if you don’t do just a little bit of research beforehand. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

If you’re a tulip-lover who’s ready to expand your knowledge about the specifics of the many different species and cultivars out there, or you’re simply looking for a few new types to add to your springtime flower beds this fall, this is the guide for you! To begin, tulips are classified in 15 different groups, or divisions. Each of these divisions has a number, and a name. These aren’t like college sports divisions, so the numerical order here is irrelevant – we’re not talking about comparing the most competitive and award-winning to the lowest quality and least decorated flowers or anything like that....

We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All in Good Time C. carvi is a pretty plant, with feathery leaves and umbrella-like flowerheads made up of many tiny white or pink blossoms. It infuses a garden with a pleasant aroma and attracts beneficial insects. In temperate zones, where caraway grows as a biennial, it matures in its second summer....

The lightweight, cordless Worx WG184 Power Share 2-in-1 40V Trimmer/Edger could solve your issues. This model is battery-operated, weighs 8.6 pounds, and will run for 20 to 30 minutes before you’ll need to recharge it. It features a variable speed throttle that an average adult can operate with one hand on the trigger, and an innovative command spool feed system, so it’s simple to feed more line with the press of a button....

Most gardeners can find a spot for a Japanese maple in their garden without issue – it’s that versatile. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Carefully chosen companion plantings can help to highlight the beauty of specimens in the garden that serve as a focal point, without taking away from their own aesthetic assets....

The folks of decades and even centuries past were probably so busy eking out every last seed to dry, pressure can, and freeze for their hungry families that they didn’t have the time to categorize what they grew in any detailed fashion. That could be the reason why so many varieties of Phaseolus lunatus, also known as the butter bean, have casual nicknames or broad descriptors. For example, artisanal dried bean distributors and heirloom seed sharers alike often just use the label “large lima” to cover most of the types that produce white, buff, or light-green colored seeds that exceed an inch or so....